1 “Nora, the social worker told me Felix has incredible test scores and such an angelic face. You really ought to take him,” Hazel said, leaning into my shoulder with a theatrical pout. “If I didn’t have my heart completely set on a girl, I wouldn’t dream of letting you have him.” I looked at the tightness around her eyes, the faint twitch at the corner of her lips, and knew instantly: she had come back, too. The ghost of her face from my previous life flashed across my memory—that twisted, triumphant sneer as the rat poison tore through my stomach while I collapsed across her kitchen table. The phantom burn of it still echoed in my chest. A quiet, heavy breath slipped past my lips. Fine, Hazel. If that’s what you want. “Alright,” I said, keeping my voice mild, almost indifferent. “I always preferred boys anyway.” I turned toward the boy standing before us. Felix was ten, his thin lips pressed into a hard, defensive line, his posture rigid. When I reached down, his small, bony hand locked around my fingers with an intensity that bordered on painful. “It’s settled, then,” Hazel chirped, her voice vibrating with breathless urgency. “Let’s go sign the intake paperwork.” Finalizing an adoption through the agency wasn’t instantaneous; there was a mandatory home-study evaluation and a waiting period before custody was officially granted. As we walked out toward the parking lot, Hazel bent down to stroke the little girl’s dark hair with exaggerated gentleness, her eyes shining with naked, greedy anticipation. I watched them in silence. Hazel, you think you’ve just bought a front-row ticket to a life of penthouse galas and private drivers. But you have no idea how much blood and ruin lies beneath that polished floorboards. 2 In our past life, Hazel and I were bonded by a mutual, bitter cynicism toward men. We had made a pact in our mid-twenties: no dating, no messy romances, no domestic cages. When we hit thirty, we would adopt independently, share a modest lease, and raise our kids together as a team. Two women against the world. We swore we’d share everything. But Hazel broke her word first. The moment she brought Felix home, everything unraveled. Behind my back, she met a smooth-talking charmer at a hotel lounge, married him within three weeks, and packed up for Seattle. Worse, she drained our joint savings account down to the last cent and blocked my number everywhere. I was left with nothing but an empty bank account and an adopted ten-year-old daughter. To keep a roof over Paige’s head, I worked forty hours a week as a mid-level accountant, and every night and weekend, I set up a folding rack at outdoor pop-up markets, selling discounted boutique overstock under the flicker of streetlamps. It was exhausting, bone-grinding work, but Paige was my saving grace. She was a gentle, quiet girl with a fierce sense of loyalty, washing dishes before I even asked and studying under the clip-on lamp by my clothing racks. She wasn’t a prodigy, but she worked diligently, never asking for things we couldn’t afford. Then came her sophomore year of college. During a summer corporate internship at the Lynn Corporation’s headquarters in downtown Chicago, she crossed paths with the group’s enigmatic CEO, Arthur Lynn. That single meeting opened Pandora’s box. One rainy Tuesday evening, a sleek black Maybach pulled up against the curb of the flea market where I was packing up my racks. The driver opened the door, and Arthur Lynn stepped out into the drizzle. “Paige is my daughter,” he said without preamble, his tailored suit completely out of place against the asphalt. “Her surname should be Lynn.” I stared at him. He was nearing forty, with sharp, aristocratic cheekbones and an aura of effortless authority that commanded the entire street. I was roughly the same age, wearing a faded canvas utility jacket, with dark circles etched permanently under my eyes. I didn’t doubt his claim for a second. Paige didn’t share his severe elegance, but their bone structure—the slope of the nose, the deep brown of their eyes—was undeniable. Yet, I felt no awe. A man who had abandoned his child for over a decade had no moral right to sweep back into her life with a wave of a checkbook, regardless of whether his net worth had nine zeroes. “Excuse me, sir,” I replied coolly, zipping up a storage bin. “You’re blocking my customers.” He didn’t argue. He simply studied me for a moment, nodded once, and left. No one could have predicted what followed. Arthur didn’t fight me in court; instead, after realizing that Paige’s world revolved entirely around me, he pursued me with quiet, relentless respect. Two years later, I married Arthur Lynn, stepping into a world of high society and quiet luxury. Paige was officially recognized as the sole heiress to the Lynn dynasty. Three years into that life, Hazel ambushed my car outside a charity gala. She threw herself onto the hood, sobbing, begging for my help. She looked like a hollowed-out shell—skin gray, fingers trembling, dragging one leg from an untreated hip injury. Despite the past, some foolish, nostalgic part of me softened. I agreed to meet her privately at a diner off the highway. She had rented a short-stay kitchenette and prepared a home-cooked spread, reminiscing about our early twenties with tears in her eyes. Over the table, she unspooled her nightmare. Her Seattle husband had turned into an abusive, alcoholic tyrant within months of their wedding. She had endured years of bruising fights while raising Felix. But Felix was not the sweet boy she had envisioned. He watched his stepfather beat her with cold, empty eyes, never lifting a finger, treating her like a stranger occupying the same hallway. Worse, she caught him behind the garage torturing stray animals with sickening detachment. She had been terrified, but she was too consumed by her failing marriage to get him psychological help. When she finally got pregnant with her husband’s biological child, things temporarily calmed down. But then, a freak fall down the basement stairs caused a late-term miscarriage that destroyed her uterus permanently. Her husband divorced her instantly, throwing her out onto the street with Felix. She survived on meager alimony, drifting through a frozen, loveless coexistence with the boy. Then, during Felix’s senior year of college, detectives knocked on her door. Felix had murdered his girlfriend in cold blood. The girl came from an influential family of prominent attorneys. Felix was sentenced to death, and the victim’s family turned their wrath on Hazel, suing her for every penny and hounding her out of town. Destitute and terrified, Hazel saw a magazine cover featuring my marriage to Arthur Lynn. She spent her last dollars tracking me down. As she wept, begging me to use the Lynn family’s legal connections to clear her debts, I hesitated. Sensing my reluctance, she smiled sweetly, nudging a bowl of chicken noodle soup toward me, telling me to eat first while I thought it over. When the poison hit, my vision blurred into black static, and my airway closed. Above me, Hazel’s tearful facade shattered into a screech of maniacal laughter: “Why did the girl you picked turn out to be an heiress?! Why do you get the penthouse and the designer dresses while that monster dragged me to hell?!” “Felix was supposed to be yours! Paige belonged to me!” As I took my last agonizing breath, Hazel shoved fists full of the poisoned food into her own mouth, swallowing frantically. And so, when we woke up back in the agency waiting room, she couldn’t wait to claim Paige for herself. She thought she was trading a monster for a golden ticket. She had no idea what was waiting for her. 3 Two months later, the home evaluation period ended, and we returned to the agency to finalize the custody transfers. Hazel had gone all out, arriving with shopping bags full of imported dresses, plush toys, and pastel hair accessories. She had deliberately made petty excuses to keep me from spending money on supplies, sneering subtly whenever I looked at children’s coats. She genuinely believed that saving a few hundred dollars on Felix was a victory. Inside the quiet common room, both children sat on low wooden chairs, waiting. My eyes went immediately to Paige. Ten years old, staring at the scuffed linoleum, her tiny fingers twisting the hem of her faded blue cardigan in nervous knots. The instinctual ache of a mother’s love pulled hard at my ribs. My heart broke for her, but I knew Hazel’s obsession with securing the Lynn fortune meant she would treat Paige like porcelain in the material sense. I took a slow breath and turned to Felix. The boy stood straight as an arrow against the wall. His dark, intelligent eyes were unreadable pools, but I noticed the subtle tremor in his clenched fists. He was just a scared, neglected ten-year-old child. Whatever darkness had festered in him in the past life, I was going to fight it with every breath in my body. Hazel had already crossed the room in three hurried steps, kneeling before Paige and making a show of unfurling an expensive lace-trimmed dress. Paige, overwhelmed by the sudden attention, let out a shy, breathless giggle, thinking she had finally found a mother who cherished her. I walked steadily over to Felix. Without hesitation, I wrapped my arms around his thin shoulders and pulled him into a warm, grounding hug. Felix stiffened instantly. A faint blush crept across his pale cheeks. In the foster system, affection was clinical, calculated, or nonexistent. He couldn’t remember the last time someone had held him simply because they wanted him close. Feeling his tension, I gently pulled back, cupped his face, and looked straight into his eyes. “Hey, Felix. I’m taking you home.” He looked away awkwardly, his jaw working, but his hand quietly sought out mine, gripping tight. We signed the final decree and caught a cab back to our apartment complex. In the back seat, Felix held my hand with white-knuckle force, his face glued to the rushing skyline outside the window. When I reached into my shoulder bag to pull out my keys, his breath hitched. “Oh!” I jerked back. Inside my purse lay a massive, stiff gray rat, its yellow incisors bared upward. My heart hammered in my chest, but I caught myself instantly and snapped the bag shut. Hazel had already leaned over, catching a glimpse. On her lap, Paige looked up, wide-eyed with curiosity. Hazel recoiled, pressing herself against the door with an exaggerated grimace. “What on earth is that? A dead rat? Did someone put that in there?” Her eyes darted toward Felix with pure, poisonous disgust. “It’s nothing,” I said calmly, smoothing my jacket. “My zipper caught on something, that’s all.” Felix suddenly turned his head, his dark eyes fixing on me with razor-sharp intensity. “I put it in there. Don’t you like it?” Hazel pounced on the admission, her tone dripping with venomous satisfaction. “See? What did I tell you? What a thoughtful son you picked, Nora. A lovely little surprise for day one.” I ignored her completely. Looking at Felix’s tense, defiant expression, I asked gently, “Did you find it and save it as a present for me?” He gave a cautious nod. I held his gaze, keeping my voice entirely devoid of disgust or anger. “Because it came from you, I appreciate the thought behind it, Felix. But bringing dead creatures to someone can be really upsetting. We can’t force what we find interesting onto other people. Just like today—I didn’t know what you liked yet, so I didn’t buy a toy; I gave you a hug instead. When we give people things that scare them, it hurts them.” Felix looked down at his sneakers, his small shoulders caving in. “I’m sorry.” I gently ruffled his hair. “It’s okay. I’m sorry I didn’t have a wrapped gift for you today.” Felix shook his head quickly. In a voice so quiet it barely cut through the engine noise, he mumbled, “…I liked the hug.” I smiled. A flush crept up his neck, and he turned his face back toward the window. He wasn’t an irredeemable monster. He was a deeply damaged, isolated child whose wires had been crossed by neglect. I could guide him. Hazel watched the entire exchange, letting out a faint, mocking scoff before turning Paige’s head away. 4 We shared a cramped, two-bedroom apartment in a rundown brick building on the city’s east side. By seven the next morning, Hazel had already cleared out her closet. With a hard-shell rolling suitcase in one hand and Paige’s hand in the other, she knocked on my door. “Paige and I are taking a little road trip,” Hazel announced, her chin raised. “We’ll be back in a week or so.” She nudged Paige, who dutifully recited, “Yes, Auntie Nora! I told Mom I wanted to see the coast, and she said yes right away!” Looking at Paige’s bright, innocent face, a familiar pang tugged at my heart. I knelt down and pinched her soft cheek affectionately. “Have the best time, sweetie. You deserve all the sunshine.” I glanced up at Hazel. “Can you let Paige wait in the living room for a second? I need to settle something with you.” Paige skipped over to the couch, clutching a new teddy bear. Hazel’s smile grew guarded. “What is it, Nora?” I rubbed my palms together, putting on a show of reluctant awkwardness. “I’ve been thinking… maybe we should go our separate ways.” Hazel blinked, genuinely caught off guard. “The apartment is tiny,” I continued, gesturing around the cramped hallway. “Now that we both have kids, it’s going to get chaotic. It’s not fair to either of them.” A flash of pure relief washed over Hazel’s features, quickly masked by a performance of tragic disappointment. “Nora, really? But we promised we’d be partners forever… I mean, you’re right, the space is tight, but…” “Since I brought it up,” I interrupted smoothly, “let’s split our remaining shared emergency fund sixty-forty. You take sixty percent, since Paige’s clothes cost more, and I’ll take forty. We’re still friends. If you ever hit a rough patch, you know how to reach me.” Hazel waved her hands in mock modesty. “Oh, you don’t have to… but if you insist, I won’t say no. To be honest, Paige and I might just find a new town we like during our trip and settle down there. The lease is up at the end of the month anyway, so consider this my notice.” “Sounds good,” I said. I took out my phone and transferred the nine thousand dollars from our joint account straight to her checking account. The moment her screen pinged with the deposit notification, her eyes gleamed. “Paige! Come say goodbye to Auntie Nora!” Paige came running over on her little legs, throwing her arms around my waist. “Bye, Auntie Nora! I’ll miss you!” “Goodbye, angel. Be good.” I watched them leave down the stairwell, my chest tight. Stay safe, Paige. Hazel was smart enough to avoid her violent ex-husband this time around. Her sudden departure was entirely calculated: she wanted to sever ties with Felix and me so our supposed ‘bad luck’ wouldn’t contaminate her future wealth. More importantly, she didn’t know the exact chain of events that led to my marriage with Arthur Lynn; keeping Paige far away from me was her way of guaranteeing I wouldn’t steal her golden goose. She wanted to be the sole architect of Paige’s ascension. Over the next few weeks, I quietly checked Hazel’s public social media posts—photos of roadside diners, beach boardwalks, and Paige’s smiling face. They had relocated to Chicago, where the Lynn Corporation had its global headquarters. Everything was moving according to script. 5 With our limited savings, I enrolled Felix in the top public middle school in our district. I refused to let him take the late bus; every single afternoon, I walked to the school gate to walk him home myself. My daily routine reverted to the grueling rhythm of my past life: nine-to-five accounting by day, and hauling racks of clearance knitwear and outerwear to the night bazaar by seven. Felix remained quiet, but he was extraordinarily observant. He kept his grades pristine, ate whatever I cooked, and never complained. Yet, a shadow of unease lingered in the back of my mind—until an incident that fall. One Thursday, our office closed early for a maintenance outage, so I arrived at the school forty minutes ahead of schedule. When the bell rang, a wave of students poured out of the brick building, but Felix was nowhere in the crowd. Worried, I walked toward the back of the campus. As I passed a dense cluster of pines near the athletic shed, a faint, distressed mewing caught my ear. Thinking Felix might love having a pet to keep him company during my late shifts, I pushed through the damp pine needles. Felix was kneeling on the dirt, holding a small calico kitten. The kitten was squirming frantically, crying out. Just as I opened my mouth to call his name, Felix’s expression hardened. With chilling deliberation, he grabbed the kitten’s foreleg and twisted it violently until a sickening snap echoed through the clearing. The kitten let out a piercing shriek. “Felix!” I shouted. His hands froze. Startled, he dropped the animal onto the damp leaves. The kitten dragged its broken leg, trembling and wailing. I didn’t scream, and I didn’t hit him. I knelt down, scooped the tiny, shivering body into my coat, and grabbed Felix’s hand with my free arm. I pulled him along behind me, marching out of the school gates toward the veterinary clinic three blocks away. Felix followed without resisting, his head bowed, his breath coming in shallow gasps. Several times he tried to speak, but I simply squeezed his wrist—firm, unyielding, but not cruel. At the clinic, the vet examined the kitten. I told the receptionist we found it injured by the road. Fortunately, the bone was young and pliable; it was a clean greenstick fracture that required a splint and pain management. While the technician bandaged the leg, she noticed our somber expressions and smiled warmly at Felix. “Did you find this little guy, buddy? You did the right thing bringing him straight to your mom. He’s going to be just fine.” Felix stared at the counter, paralyzed by the unexpected praise. Once we stepped outside and sat on a wooden park bench, the street quiet around us, I turned to him. “Why did you hurt the kitten, Felix?” He stayed silent for a long time, his fingers picking at the seam of his jeans. “I liked it,” he whispered, a tremor of cold resentment in his voice. “But it didn’t like me. It scratched me and tried to run away. It needed to be punished.” He looked at me, braced for the inevitable slap or screaming match he had grown accustomed to in state facilities. Instead, I placed both hands on his shoulders, grounding him. “Felix, looking at me. That kitten is a living, breathing soul. It has a mother somewhere out there. If its mother saw it broken and crying, her heart would shatter.” My voice softened, catching on genuine emotion. “Just like me. If someone hurt you—if someone broke your arm because you didn’t do what they wanted—I would be devastated. I would cry until I had no tears left. You don’t want to break my heart, do you?” His dark eyes widened, glistening with sudden, unshed moisture. His fingers reached out, clutching my sleeve with frantic desperation. “I won’t… I won’t make you sad.” He choked on the words, wanting to say Mom, but the word caught in his throat like broken glass. I pulled him into my chest, holding him so tightly our coats rustled. Feeling his frail, rigid frame finally dissolve into quiet sobs, a fierce tenderness flooded my veins. Hazel, you fool. You thought a child was born broken by destiny. You never understood that evil is just unguided pain left to rot in the dark.
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